The invention relates to a crawler vehicle for use in agriculture, such as a tractor, a combine harvester or the like.
Conventional crawler vehicles typically comprise two or four track roller units, which support the body and in each of which a track belt is tensioned between guide rollers. Unlike air-filled tires, the guide rollers are generally not elastically deformable per se. For this reason, an oscillatory connection between the roller unit and the body is particularly significant in a crawler vehicle when the objective is that of preventing or limiting vibrations of the body and optionally, of tools of the agricultural vehicle mounted thereon when traveling over uneven terrain.
An agricultural vehicle comprising track roller units is known, for example, from DE 199 19 959 A1. In this conventional crawler vehicle, two guide rollers of a track roller unit are held by two supporting arms, which are rigidly connected to one another via coupling flanges. The coupling flanges rest against one another and are bolted to one another. A bearing journal oriented transversely to the vehicle, about which the rigidly interconnected supporting arms can pivot, is connected to a second, vertically oriented coupling flange.
When one of the guide rollers passes over a raised area on the ground and the other guide roller non-incidentally simultaneously passes over a depression, the stub axle is moved upward. In order to prevent such an upward motion from being transferred to the body, the connecting flange is not directly connected to the body, but rather is connected in an articulated manner to an anchor plate. The anchor plate is fixed to the body, via a bearing journal that is offset toward the stub axle in the longitudinal direction of the vehicle. Given that the flange pivots about the axis defined by the bearing journal, the flange can yield to the upward motion of the guide roller and the stub axle without transferring this upward motion to the body.
The length of the bearing journal is slight and corresponds to the thickness of the anchor plate and the connecting flange. The weight of the vehicle therefore acts with a very short lever arm on the bores of the anchor plate and the connecting flange, which accommodate the bearing journals, and local forces can occur that are considerably greater than the weight of the vehicle. In order to securely and permanently hold the bearing journal, the anchor plate and the connecting flange must have a considerable wall thickness, which contributes to the weight of the track roller unit.